Burnout

I think I have to admit it to myself. I’m burned out. NaNoWriMo this year felt more like drudgery than fun; I haven’t felt like returning to the keyboard since. Even scrolling through the high-drama world of writer-Twitter has been exhausting lately. I’ve started and yet not finished two books since January (in my defense, both are over 1,000 pages long–Brandon Sanderson is not a brief fella).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this article: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. At first, I read it with derision: my generation has been blamed and exorcised for so many things, I went in jaded. And the small things don’t hit me. I don’t have a problem crossing things off my list–in fact, today, I sat down to write this, but also a) cleaned the dog’s poo outside, b) printed a return shipping label, c) checked on missing info for my taxes, d) started a photobook, and e) found the article so I could link it here.

But how I feel about all those tasks? Ugh. Right on the money. I’m exhausted but I feel like I can’t stop, either.

After reading that article, I realized I have had 9 jobs in 10 years. NINE. All white-collar (a thing that is rare and lucky). Some simultaneously. Lots of overlap. Lots of hustle. Plus I wrote and published two books in there as well. That’s nine jobs of at least three months of getting to know the office culture, of scrounging for vacation time (and the money to go on one), plus trying to suss out whether they’re being fair with raises (spoiler: the last one wasn’t), trying to meet people, trying to keep up appearances while making ends meet. That’s… that’s a lot. In 10 years, I’ve only been unemployed for a total of two months–which, granted, I’m lucky for that as well, but that’s another sign of the relentlessness.

I think my train may finally have run out of fuel.

But of course it can’t. It still can’t. It’s not like I can just tell the IRS I’m too burned out to do my taxes. So all the “must-dos” still get done, but all the things that feed my spirit, that make me feel good, dissipate into the ether. I’m emotionally starved. No wonder I can’t produce.

Of course, I feel bad for not producing, too. So many cutesy stupid memes out there say to be a “real” writer, you MUST write every day. Well, I haven’t written anything for myself in three months. I’ve done a helluva lot of writing for money, but that is a totally different beast. So IF you must write every day, and I haven’t for three months…well, I guess I’m not a writer right now. And that’s another thing to feel guilty about, on my emotional prisoner’s rations.

I’m tired. I want to go on a retreat away from everything. I want to sit in a hammock for a week and have someone else come in and automate all the things on my to-do list so they vanish on their own.

I don’t know how to make all this work, and some days I’m really tired from trying.

…NINE jobs in 10 years. That’s ridiculous!